Driving Wheel was Little Jr. Parker’s first full-length LP, released on the Houston-based Duke label at the height of Parker’s popularity in 1962, when he was ranked in the top echelon of blues artists, along with B.B. King, Ray Charles, and Parker’s former valet Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, in terms of record sales and radio airplay. (Parker and Bland had shared an earlier LP, Blues Consolidated.) The Driving Wheel album featured Parker’s influential renditions of the Blues classics ‘Driving Wheel,’ ‘Yonder’s Wall,’ ‘Tin Pan Alley,’ and ‘I Need Love So Bad,’ along with other recent hits such as ‘Annie Get Your Yo-Yo’ and ‘How Long Can This Go On.’ On the original release of this LP, Parker (1932-1971) posed on the cover in front of his modern ranch-style home in Houston with his new white Cadillac. Parker was elected to the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001.
